


Odd Worlds, Odd Words

by werit



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, College, Gen, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Nonbinary Frisk (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werit/pseuds/werit
Summary: “I can feel it... Every time you die, your grip on this world slips away. Every time you die, your friends forget you a little more. Your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you.”In which Asriel gets his way...
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	1. Old Friends Far Apart

Something has gone wrong.

“I can feel it... Every time you die, your grip on this world slips away. Every time you die, your friends forget you a little more. Your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you.”

Frisk can’t move their body. The goat monster before them is warped, misshapen, angelic wings beating behind his back, pulsing with the same energy as the barrier(?) behind him. His robes are gone, replaced with… armor? A carapace? Frisk can’t tell. The monster’s form is like a dream, a nightmare. They feel like they should know who he is, like the name is on the tip of their tongue, but it’s stuck in the depths of their mind.

Frisk tries, helplessly, to struggle, but they’re met with a cold reminder. 

“Can’t move your body.” 

The voice is a child’s - not theirs, and definitely not the monster’s either. Maybe the other person is behind them. The sound feels like it’s coming from Frisk’s own head, pressing down on their eardrums from the inside of their skull.

The world is burning around them in beautiful colors, reality falling apart at the seams. Neon blues and purples shimmer in the monster’s wings, blending into the emptiness that comprises the empty void.

“Still you're hanging on...?” The monster’s voice booms. “That's fine. In a few moments, you'll forget everything, too. That attitude will serve you well in your next life!”

Frisk’s SOUL is shattered beyond repair. Fracture lines run across its surface, a lattice telling a story of death and fire. They can remember dying in flames. The other voice is telling them to hold on, to keep fighting, but it’s growing fainter and fainter. Before long, they can’t even remember what they--what it sounds like.

As the flames hit Frisk, they are terrified.

They are filled with Determination.

* * *

Frisk wakes up sweaty.

It’s nearly always the same nightmares, and tonight is no different. They’ve had them since they were a kid, and nothing has ever made them go away. not medication and not therapy. The goat monster is one of the better ones, surprisingly. After one of the worse ones, the golden hallway or the plant demon, they’re almost guaranteed to stay awake all night. 

Frisk’s apartment is somehow lonely and cramped at the same time. They don’t have a roommate, which means that the most they can afford with their own salary is this tiny, 550-square-foot, one-bedroom studio, miles away from the edge of campus. On the upside, though, it means they can turn all the lights on when they wake up in the middle of the night, which unfortunately happens quite often.

They stumble into the kitchenette and manage to fill their kettle with water before setting it gently on the electric stovetop. Tea always helps their brain calm down from the adrenaline high of a nightmare. But which one? Looking at the half-collapsed pile of tea boxes that takes up nearly a third of the pantry, Frisk realizes (not for the first time) that they might have a bit of a hoarding problem. Eventually, they settle on golden flower, the obviously correct choice.

They can’t remember why that is.

Their mind is still racing. Each nightmare feels like another piece of the puzzle, a clue in the convoluted mythos that Frisk must have dreamed up. They read once that the human brain isn’t complex enough to make up faces - it just steals them from strangers off the street, or people in one’s life. The only thing is, Frisk has never met a goat monster, and to the best of their knowledge, has never even seen one. So where did the image come from?

By the time it takes their brain to remember its exhaustion, the kettle begins to whistle softly. Frisk rushes to pour themself a cup, letting it cool before they take a sip. They do this whole routine quite often, nearly to the point where just thinking about the hot drink cools their head. They know that the key to falling back asleep is letting your mind wander off the nightmare to a more pleasant subject, and they make no attempt to force it back onto its path. 

Bones starting to ache with tiredness, the bed is calling them back now, and Frisk graciously accepts its invitation, sinking into the mattress, wrapping the blankets and sheets around themself. They grab their book and curl up, barely skimming the pages in an effort to trick their mind into comfort. Frisk instinctively knows that if they can get back to bed, they’ll sleep through the night. Eventually, the words start to blur, and they drift back into a (thankfully) dreamless sleep.

* * *

Chara has never been a people person. As they like to joke to themselves, they’ve met far too many people for that. Instead, they stay mostly to themselves, which suits the other people just fine anyway. Because as much as Chara dislikes other people, other people dislike Chara just as much if not more. The joys of being “abrasive,” as one potential foster parent had said when they thought Chara was out of earshot.

It never bothered Chara, though. Approval was never what they wanted. Instead, they sought independence. And on their eighteenth birthday, eight months ago, they finally got it.

Independence comes with its own costs, as they’re now discovering. Mainly rent. And for eight months now, they’ve been on their own, moving from minimum-wage job to minimum-wage job in order to a: make ends meet and b: get as far away from their childhood as possible.

Now, they’re wide awake despite the late hour, the blue light of their laptop screen telling every photoreceptor in their eyes to stay open as they browse hopelessly through job postings. Everything that’s available is customer service, and Chara does not do well at customer service. The knife incident at Macy’s was evidence enough of that.

As they scroll, they mutter to themselves, “Customer service, customer service, fast food, retail, fast food, customer service…”, fading off as the list goes on and on. They have not been feeling good. 

Eventually, figuring that the jobs board isn’t suddenly going to get filled with new offers in the time that it takes them to get some shuteye, Chara shuts their laptop down and topples onto the mattress on their floor.

But with that motion, the cramp in their stomach acts up again, pinning Chara awake despite their exhaustion. Everything feels wrong. Worse, everything feels familiar. And suddenly, they’re not just hurting, they’re infirm, stuck in bed and their entire body feels like it’s aflame. 

There’s someone whispering to them, a blurry white face that they can’t recognize. _“Six, right?”_

Chara feels themself mutter something back, but the haze is too strong for them to hear what they’ve said.

_“We just have to get six… And we'll do it together, right?”_

...

Chara is **not** crazy. But they black out sometimes, and during those blackouts, recently, they’ve been hearing voices.


	2. Dark Past Not Forgotten

Mornings are hard.

To Frisk right now, that’s the understatement of the year. Their phone’s alarm clock, which they had viewed last evening as a necessary evil required to wake up on time, now feels more like a torture device that they had set up in some temporally-masochistic scheme, its chime drilling into their sleep-deprived skull.

“Five more minutes,” they moan, to nobody in particular.

The phone, indifferent, keeps beeping.

Groaning, Frisk sits up, grabbing around with their eyes still half-shut. They fumble with the phone on their bedside table, knocking it onto the fortunately carpeted floor. The beeping continues, of course, much to their despair.

Five minutes later, Frisk, yawning, meanders into the meager kitchenette. The coffeemaker, blessed enabler of morning-time sanity, beckons. Unscrewing the lid, Frisk scoops out what precious little coffee is left. Because they tend to prefer tea (except in the direst of energy-related situations) they’d forgotten that it was nearly gone.

“Gonna have to remember to buy more,” they mutter to themself.

After filling the coffeemaker’s reservoir with water and starting the brew, Frisk checks their email on their phone. It’s mostly notifications from school, but there is one message that stands out. Frisk taps it. 

> **Missing Connections to Your Past Life???** from  [ aimsales41@threenet.com **  
>  ** ](mailto:aimsales41@threenet.com) Missing connections to your past life? Need to get in touch with your spirit history? Spirit crystals ON SALE NOW!!!! Reduced 30% to only $27.99 for FOUR crystals GUARANTEED to connect you to your personal past. Limited time offer: Buy today!

Chuckling, Frisk marks the message as spam, wondering how on earth it made it past their spam filter.  _ Seriously,  _ they think,  _ past lives? Who on earth believes in that nonsense? _

The coffeemaker finishes sputtering, and Frisk hurriedly pours a good deal into a travel mug, adding a fair amount of cream and sugar before taking a deep sip. It’s still somewhat bitter, but now it’s at least manageable. Frisk just doesn’t understand people who love the taste of coffee. To them, it’s bitter bean juice that keeps them awake, not an accessory that they need to pretend to like. 

Taking a large gulp from the mug (and immediately regretting it, that is still HOT) Frisk heads out the door, then glances at their car - a beat-up old Toyota Corolla. Their apartment is, unfortunately, either a twenty-five-minute walk from campus or a six-minute drive, which is the perfect sweet spot to make Frisk want to drive and, simultaneously, feel stupid for doing so. 

Fifteen minutes later, Frisk sits in the lecture hall, cursing themself for planning morning classes.  _ What’s the point of even attending, you’re already dozing off,  _ they think. They’re right: the professor’s lecture is already fading to the back of their head. They guess even coffee couldn’t halt the effects of four bad nights in a row.

“--and what’s more, researchers also need to take cautions about what information they know. Ensuring double-blindness is essential for proper research. Try to slip a trial without it past an ethics board, and you’re going to have a bad time explaining--”

Frisk snaps awake.

Their left hand is clenched around something that isn’t there. Their heart is beating. Fast.

Why?

Frisk tries to calm themself down by taking a few deep breaths. Eventually, the feeling of pure panic fades.

They have a list of words, phrases that they negatively react to. The go-to word for that type of thing is triggers, but Frisk doesn’t like it. To them, it implies negative intent, someone intentionally firing off their emotions. No, the words are like needles that have been carelessly discarded. Too small to see, too small to hurt if not for old sores, sores that Frisk can’t remember how they came.

And this was a new one. A dark, deep sore. Frisk adds it, mentally, to the list.

Why - and how - had they forgotten?

* * *

Chara walks out of the room, finally letting the grin they’d been holding subside. They had forgotten how much they hate job interviews. It had been two, maybe three months since their last. But they’d also forgotten how good they were at them, wearing a wide smile, giving a chuckle at the corny jokes and catchphrases (nervously, of course, don't want to come off as cocky), and fooling the interviewer about themself. 

Because if an interviewer ever knew anything about how Chara REALLY was, they’d be sure to never hire them. Straight into the discard pile.

_ Yes, we’re proud to hire people with violent thoughts and former aggressive tendencies! That is, in fact, the basis for our business model. Oh, and we find that it greatly improves customer retention and opinion of our brand. Sign here, please, we’d LOVE to have you on our team! _

Hiding is exhausting but necessary, Chara has learned. Making their way out of the office complex, they retrieve their bicycle from the street rack and head back to the next job interview. Busy day.

Their gut is still sore, but it’s much better than it had been last night.  _ Did it make them black out, _ Chara wonders,  _ or was it just the… hallucination? _ They should probably see a doctor, but they’ve heard tales of the fucking travesty that is the American healthcare system, and they’re not eager to get hit with a bill in the thousands for a checkup. They’ll live.

After a few silent minutes of pedaling, Chara arrives at their destination. It’s a Burger King. There was a time when Chara never would have considered working in a fast-food restaurant, but they’ve since realized that a paycheck is a paycheck. They lock up their bike to a tree, take a deep breath, and walk through the double glass doors. There’s nobody inside - they guess it is rather early.

“Hi,” they say to the cashier confidently, “I’m here for the job interview?”

The cashier turns towards the back of the building. “Marissa!” she shouts, “An applicant’s here!”

A moment passes before a woman comes into view. “Hi! I’m Marissa, I’m the manager.”

“Chara,” they say with a practiced smile.

“Nice to meet you! If you’ll just step behind the counter and into the office, we can get started.”

As Chara does so, they notice the smell - grilled patties, frying oil, and grease. It’s… tolerable, but pushing it. They follow Marissa into the small office and pull over one of the chairs to the desk, taking a seat.

“So why did you want to apply for this job?”

And so begins the bullshit. Over the next twenty minutes, Chara finds themself lying about their motivations, their interests, et cetera: all part of the song and dance they’ve learned over the past eight months. They’ve learned that employers don’t want to know about the REAL you, they want to know about the PERFECT you. The way you want to be - that’s who they’re looking for. And if Chara can make themselves seem like they’re at least trying (HA), it might make a difference.

Maybe not, though. Interviews are, after all, just one step of the process. And while Chara’s hesitancy to join any form of social media has certainly helped keep the details of their life private (and easy to fabricate), it also doesn’t help build credibility. Apparently, an employer wants you to be “responsible” and “trustworthy,” that kind of nonsense.

_ It isn’t enough that you’re flipping burgers _ , Chara thinks as they blather on about an imaginary passion for community service,  _ they’re going to want me to also be ready to take on a million other things at a moment's notice. _

Which is fine by them, of course. It’s all part of the game.

The interview doesn’t last too long - Chara doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad sign. Either way, they’re escorted out with a friendly wave. This whole ordeal couldn’t have happened at a worse time. They had lost their last job (supposedly to a layoff, but they have their doubts) two months ago, just as the university began the fall semester, and with the labor market undoubtedly flooded with an influx of broke college students, who knows what Chara’s chances were at landing a job. At least the interviews hadn’t dried up yet - just as their savings were beginning to.

Chara realizes that they’re breathing deeply, an old habit for controlling their anxiety. By now it’s almost instinctual to deal with stress, but really, it’s always been. Although Chara can remember getting into many, many fights, they’d always done so with a cool head. And afterward, they were always one of, if not the last standing. The fights gave them a perverse sense of pleasure somehow, knowing that they were always on top, that they had fought and earned their place there. In a way, that still does, even though they  _ know _ it shouldn’t.

Just another reason to hide the real Chara.

The bike lock slides through the spokes of the tire, making an awful noise as it’s pulled. It’s rusted to hell, and Chara would already be replacing it if they had the money. But even a small expense such as that can’t be spared right now, not with rent coming up. They need to land a job and fast. Whatever it takes.

* * *

The town, Shoreview, is small, dominated by the college campus. Frisk, originally, had seen that as an upside. A small town meant a tight-knit community, more opportunities to make close friends. But they had soon learned the flip side of living in such a small town.

It’s easy to know when you’re not wanted. Especially if you’re used to that same reaction.

In a big city, like the one Frisk had grown up in, people are always busy, and the excuses they give are real, even though they’ll grow stale over time. But when everyone knows each other, it’s much more obvious who’s been left out.

But it’s not just the others. Frisk doesn’t feel right among the people here. It’s too different, they think, from how they grew up. (Not that they made many connections then, anyway.)

Still, Frisk has some friends, but they’re more like acquaintances. Roxy, a golem monster who’s majoring in electrical engineering, and Tanner, a human studying applied mathematics, are eating lunch with them now in the dining hall. There’s not much conversation: the group doesn’t have much in common. As Frisk takes a bite, they wonder what they should have done differently, how they could have met the right people, said the right things, et cetera. 

And then, for a split second, they wonder why they still can’t.

Before realizing, of course, it’s too late now. All the freshmen have already settled into their social circles, and Frisk has been left behind. They might have a chance in the spring. Maybe.

_ If only you could try again _ , they think. When it comes to the social realm, opportunities like that never come for Frisk. They always fail, mess up the first impression, and after that, they’re never given a second chance. A reset button.

Suddenly, they’re hit with another shock - but this one isn’t like the first. It doesn’t feel like a sharpening of the senses, a readying for battle, it feels like a real  _ shock _ . Like electricity through their nerves, up their spine, and into their brain, or maybe the other way around. It’s sharp, but even after it fades, Frisk still feels a tingling sensation where it had left. It was REAL in a way that the others weren't.

What had they heard, what needle had they stepped on? Frisk’s companions were still silent, was it a conversation in the background, maybe? If so, it would be impossible to track down, to write down and record so that it didn’t happen again.

Two in one day was not good, they knew that much.

* * *

_ “Chara!” _

Chara doesn’t recognize the voice that they hear. But they do remember them - from their dreams. The strange things the voices said hadn’t bothered them before. After all, dreams are supposed to be odd and off-putting: they’re the half-sensical constructions of an unconscious mind.

But, two weeks ago, when one of the voices had left the dreams… Shuddering, Chara unlocks the door to their studio. The boy’s voice rings through Chara’s ears.  _ “Come on, Chara! Don’t you want to help?”  _ Chara ignores it.

_ “Mom and Dad are waiting!” _

What.

Chara doesn’t remember their family. They had been a foster kid since they were six, and apparently, the memories from before then are too distant - or too painful - to recall.

How on earth could they have had a brother?

And how on earth could Chara have not known?

They couldn’t have - it would have been recorded somewhere. The words Chara heard must be their head playing tricks on them, not a memory. They  _ refuse _ to listen to the voice, and eventually, the childish whining fades away. But it leaves behind a melody, a tune crafted between its words and echoed in its laughter. Something hopeful, but when Chara hums it out loud, they’re struck with a deep feeling of somber, and they swear they can hear rain.

They had heard these notes before, they just knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always appreciate kudos and I live for comments, and if you're enjoying this so far, be sure to check out my other fic! Thank you so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I should not be starting another fic... but I needed to get this idea out of my head. Let me know what you guys think, and if there's any desire for more, I'll see what I can do :)


End file.
